Just as the GPS alarm goes off telling us we are there, my rod bends over, way over. This fish is pulling major drag with the reel locked down! Really nice fight. I was seriously not sure we would get him in. Finally Gary hooks him with the grouper pick and gets him in the boat! Nice shallow water beast at a little over 33 inches and 18.1 lbs.

We started off trolling plugs in about 25-30 feet without any luck, then switched to bottom fishing. We probably caught 20 slot grouper with the largest at 34″ and over 25lbs. Incredible fish. They were biting live baits, frozen herring, and squid. The big grouper was taken on a whole squid.

Just shy of 40 feet, we stopped on an old number and it took a while to find any fish. Using frozen East Coast pogies, the first drop netted a short gag. The second gag hit hard and started heading to the side where I presume the rocks were. This was a good fish and once on the deck it measures 31.5 inches. The bite is on!

Only nice thing was the seas were absolute flat! We hunted far and wide, from 20ft out to 24ft, back to 20ft, then in to 17ft, and finally quit in 15ft. Lizard fish were plentiful, but Gail finally connected on this beauty in the 17ft area.

We caught a 29″ grouper on a Bomber Long A, about 300 feet back, probably six to eight feet down. That grouper came up 25 or so feet to attack the bomber (blue/white) and passed on the divers. We were also running a couple of Rapala Magnums (25 to 30 ft.). The water was so clear that earlier that day in 40+ feet, I watched a ladyfish plug rest on the bottom with a huge turtle and a remora swimming behind the turtle. Amazing.

We kept circling back around the same area and almost every pass we hooked up. Finished with about 15 total grouper with six keepers between the three of us. 29, 27, 25, 25, 27, and a 33 inch to end the trip. Fire tiger and mackerel rapalas did the trick.

Started out pitching artificials, that produced a keeper mangrove snapper. We swapped over to cut bait and pulled seven short grouper, 14-17″. No heros, but it was a lot of fun on light tackle and it was what we set out to do for the day.

Final toll: 25,25,25,26″. Two of the keepers had fresh baits in their gullets, a squirrel and a grunt. I assume ours. Also a third one had a circle hook in it’s jaw. My brand and size. Wow, it’s amazing how aggressive these guys are even after being hooked just minutes before.

We anchored up, set out the chum bags and aggressively chummed with chopped up bait fish. We picked up one 12″ mango, 4 grouper, and about 40 to 50 grunts. Some of which were a good pound and a half. The groupers were 18, 22 ,26 and 27″.

The run out to our first stop was a 96 mile stretch that we made quick work of by taking turns at the wheel, and before we knew it we were in 130 feet of water at our destination. The current wasn’t bad at all so we started drifting this area of structure, dropping a combo of live baits and Boston mackerel.

The real star of the show and the fish that sealed the deal for us was a giant 60 pound kingfish. After being on ice for 24 plus hours he weighed in at 58.95 pounds. We also had a 40 pound King that would’ve been good for 2nd if that was allowed.

Tuesday I headed out to work on a new technique. With the way cobia and groupers love eel looking plastics, I wanted to be able to put theses plastics in front of them without having to resort to heavy down riggers.

Headed straight to a rock in 15 feet and deployed the plugs, Carolyn’s rod goes off and she’s into one of the beast that makes this area home. I look out back and there’s a grouper herd following the boat. I pitch a jig and another beast inhales the jig.

That spot fired up immediately and I pulled up a 31 inch amberjack. Lee followed that with a stud red snapper and over the next hour or so, we put some decent fish in the box. I decided to fire down a special livebait and within minutes, had a very nice 25 pound plus gag grouper on the line and in short order, in the fishbox.

We get to the 16 foot area and weeds were scattered but not bad for running some plugs. Put out a Rapala and a YoZuri and after some getting use to Mike’s boat, we have a good spread running true. Darlene’s rod goes off and with some help from Uncle Billy getting the rod out of the holder, she’s into a major fight trying to turn this grouper.

Hit Cedar Key, ran all the way to my first spot without stopping. We pulled up to see a massive amount of bait being busted by blues. Dropped the trolling rods in and instantly put three nice fish in the boat.

So we deployed the chum ,anchored up and sent out 2 more pin fish. It wasn’t long before gags started slamming everything we put in the water which was a blast on medium weight spinning tackle in 10 feet of water.

I picked a nice section and on the first run both rods go off, a double! This is a first, Gail has a grouper and I thought I had the bottom. My bottom starts shaking so, it’s a fish, and a second later it gets airborne and it’s a nice cobe.

We drifted and chunked around the horseshoe rigs and developed a slow bite that turned into an all out feeding frenzy. We caught Blackfin Tuna to 20 pounds, kingfish to 50 pounds, red snapper to 18 pounds, AJs to 70 and of course yellowfin tuna up to 150 pounds.

Time is running out, so I looked over and said lets try a “hail mary” in a 10 foot rocky area. So off we go. We stop, change the plugs to some smaller big lip plugs. Put the plugs out and Ken’s rod goes off, It’s another “limb shaker”. This time it’s a 31 inch beauty!

I was beginning to think I wouldn’t make it back out before gag season closes this year because of the weather and other commitments. That all changed Friday evening when Capt. George Gozdz, the host of Florida Sportsman’s TV show “Reel Time,” contacted me and wanted to know if I was interested in co-hosting an episode with him.

The kid finally started to rouse around 2pm and I asked her if she wanted to stop and catch grunts (she can’t handle grouper yet). She said “yes,” stood up, turned green, and asked to go in. We did just that. You have to love her fortitude though. On the way home she asked when we could go again.

She wanted to hit some nasty bottom area in 15 feet, so we were off. It seems like we pull a trophy gag out of this spot every time we visit it. Guess what? We didn’t have the plug in the water 1 minute and Gail’s rod is screaming!

We stopped at a shallower spot and saw that the water was clean so we stayed there. First drops down and all we were hooking up with was lady fish, grunts, and some small grouper. Moved over another 75 yards and found what we were looking for. For several hours, as soon as the bait hit the bottom it was getting eaten.

We ran a few miles, anchored and immediately started getting freight trained by 12 to 18 pound red snappers. Within a couple of hours we had our limit and we started targeting mangos and beeliners with hopes of some red grouper. We fished and slept on and off until dawn and had a limit of mangos by then.

We get the rods set back up again, and now it’s Gail turn. Doesn’t take long and her Redi-Rig float goes down and she hooked into a nice one. After a 45 minute battle she works him to the boat, and the net does the job. Nice 30 pound fish comes aboard.

Gags were around and a few good ones took our bait. Smaller pieces of ladyfish was the top producer. 3 of the red grouper were small, around 20 to 22 inches and 5 were between 24 and 26 inches. A few more blackies and some decent grunts rounded out our catch. Only 2 red grouper were under size and were released along with all the gags.

The weather buoy data showed winds between 15 and 20 mph all day with waves to 4 feet. We slogged out to 45 feet and made a couple drops, Gags and more Gags. So I said lets take out medicine now and get to where the bait and red grouper are. We slogged out another 6 miles and 55 feet was loaded with bait. 55 feet was also loaded with gag grouper and one keeper red grouper.

Fished a little farther out this time in 380 to 465 feet, caught tilefish, snowy grouper, kitty Mitchell grouper, scamp, gags, red snapper, AJs, bar jacks and porgies. This is my first Kitty Mitchell grouper so I wanted to share it. Gags were all 20-38 pounds and snapper were all 15-20 pounds which really hurt to release.

The hot bait today was the white Rapala X Rap 20. Today we were also getting our bigger grouper trolling using a unique technique, we would hook up with the first fish then slow down and work the other lure hard and more than once we hooked up with bigger Gags on the second rod. We had to retire two plugs today because they were destroyed from big gags smacking them.

Then we switched to big live baits and ended up with 6 gags and 1 26 inch Red. Biggest gag was 29 inches. Weather was awesome, my Bluewater rode 35 mph the whole way out and back. Not the best day but we will have fresh grouper all week.

The plan was to explore a new area a bit deeper than I have been over the past few trips. We shoved off at 7:00 and ran out close to 50 feet and set up on an area that I knew held some gags. As soon as we dropped out bait the bite was on with a pair of gags one 31 and one 33 inches. The continued with a good 23-inch red grouper and a few shorts then shut down. Rather than wait them out we started trolling and looking for new bottom and took one 24-inch gag on stretch 30 which we tossed back. After another 45 minutes of trolling we found some good bottom and set up on it. The bite started to pick back up and before we knew it we took 3 reds between 23 and 27 inches and another gag right at 30 inches. A couple more local moves over new bottom and a couple more grouper at each stop. We counted 14 grouper in the box so we moved once to finish our limit but all shorts. One last move and it was a triple, 2 really nice reds over 24 inches and a 27 inch gag.

Had a good day offshore groupering yesterday. Headed out to 45 feet into overcast, stormy skies, and a little chop but nothing too bad. The particular spot we were headed to is a large patch reef area, not much relief but good hard, live bottom. The plan was to get out there and troll around for a little and see if we could catch a grouper or at least find a new spot or two. We syck at grouper trolling and didn’t get a bite, but after about 15 minutes we marked two nice looking spots. We set up on the most promising one and the bite was on! We caught a few shorts but most were keepers, the ratio of keeper to shorts has changed quite a bit from last season. Think that’s a good sign for the grouper population, but I’m no marine biologist.

After taking Billy out for a Cobia trip he won’t forget, I am sitting at the computer having coffee Sunday morning and I look over my shoulder and Mrs. Ruff One is standing there dressed in her fishing outfit. She looks at me and says ” seas are down, wind is down, cobia are biting, get off your a–, get your stuff together and lets get out here!” She doesn’t have to twist my arm much for me to respond. In thirty minutes we were at the ramp and rolling. No messing around on this trip. Headed off shore about 15 miles and setup on some real nice live bottom. I don’t even have the chum bag out and Mrs. Ruff is hooked into a Cobia.

With grouper season about to close we got the kids out one last time. Got to the ramp to find it empty on a sunday. Weird. Put in with a stiff 15 knot NE wind. Took our time getting to 60 feet but on the first spot we put 8 nice red grouper in the boat right off the bat. We were having some issues with the anchor holding in the 4 foot seas but after swithcing anchors that problem stopped. We moved around from spot to spot putting another 7 red grouper in the box and some real nice gags back in the water.[…]

Doc Mike and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to head offshore for some end of the season red grouper. looking at the intellicast windfinder it looked like a perfect day to head out deep. We hit the water at 8 and ran directly to our 60-65 foot area. Perfect seas all the way and one drop of the anchor and it was looking good with a fat 26″red in the boat in short order. That action continued for an hour as we put 6 grouper of similar size in the box. Rather than weeding through 10 shorts to land a keeper we were landing about half under and half over well over. […]

If you go offshore, don’t be surprised if you catch one of those elusive Gag Groupers, you might catch 1 or 100. But on a serious note, the Red Grouper are still biting good in 45-60 feet and the bite is heavier in 90-100 foot range. We did an over night trip out to an area in 100 feet of water and did really good on Big Mangrove Snapper and Red Porgy. I also learned something new, Red Snapper and Gag grouper love fried chicken. I gave one of my friends the rest of my dinner, just the bones and told him it was great grouper bait, he dropped it down and to our surprise got a 39 inch Gag about 5 seconds after the bait hit the bottom! […]

Bait of the day was Octopus and Herring Jerky. Sharks were manageable, I did have two rigs messed up but nothing like earlier in the week. Flying teeth was not as bad but bad enough at the dock. On the conditions, it finally did calm down around 3 and the run in was manageable, by the time we got to 10 miles out it was calm, at 5 miles slick calm. Only saw four boats all day on the water, did see a few inshore guys in the river but everyone is saying the trout are out of the creeks and back in the GOM. […]

Lee., Mike, and I set out for deep water to dig up some red grouper. After finding out we had overwritten all of our GPS information we found an area with a modest bite. As we worked that area Lee managed to get the GPS info off a sd card and we ran only a half mile to the area we intended to fish. Large gags were taking our baits and putting a serious hurting on our tackle. No hot bite but we moved around from point to point and kept the bite going. after all the action came to a hault we boxed a few red grouper and a big pile of grunts for the table. All fish were caught on frozen cut bait. Flat seas, good company and perfect weather made for another excellent day on the bay here on the Nature Coast […]

Didn’t get on the water till 8:15, but getting bait didn’t take long on the flats. By 9:00 we had the wells blacked out with pinfish. First stop was in 50 feet, made a couple drifts boating a 24-inch gag and a kingfish. Continued out another 15 miles and stopped in 65 feet. The bite was on fire dropping live pinfish and cut threadfins, we had our limit in about 2 hours. Also caught a short AJ on live bottom and hung two kings on the flat line […]

Went offshore out of Homosassa for the first time last Saturday. Picked the spot off the Top Spot map, caught alot of big grunts and red grouper, 2 being keepers. We were chummimg when we spotted the man in the brown suit, I grab freeline pole put a pinfish on and it gets whacked. After a nice fight bring him to the net and in the boat he comes 44 inch cobia […]

Well, rumor has it that a cold water up dwelling and the full moon almost on us should have the rays up and the cobia with them. Linda and I headed over to the other side to see if we could find em’. We caught up with my brother John at his boat in Port Canaveral and off we went!

Left the dock at 6:30 a.m. with a little more wind than I expected, I knew it would be a little bumpy as soon as I looked at the stacks on the power plant. Steady West wind all day. Scooted out to 50+/- feet, having to slow some the last 7 miles or so since it got a little “rolly”. We anchored up on a spot that did very well a few weeks earlier and it was on instantly. We only needed to move twice and loaded up on some very nice red grouper […]

It has been a while since I posted any reports, so I figured it was time to do so. I will tell you this, the weatherman lies. Calling for 2 to 3 foot seas, a good boating day, yeah right. It was more like 5 to 6 foot seas winds blowing 15 to 18 knots. Bounded and determined we made our way to the 50 foot range in search of red grouper.

The weather man was half right today. Morning forecast was for 10mph or less-wrong–more like 15mph and blowing constant. The seas were angry and made fishing in my boat a chore. Afternoon forecast was for the winds to lay down and they were right on. Since it was howling this morning, we decided to hit the first shallow water structure we could find. Settled on some areas in 12 ft. Decided not to anchor, so we made some drifts. On the second drift, Mrs. Ruff One hollers over the wind–here comes a cobe, and she’s hooked up […]

Got out early. Caught bait at the last channel marker and headed offshore at 30 mph by sunrise. Great day on the water! We hooked up with a few AJs on live bait then switched to a 9″ topwater plug. As i got the AJ close to the boat 2 goliaths and 2 small sharks came after it. I’m sure this AJ would have been toast if i didnt have 65 lb braid and an 80 lb leader. Luckily I got the fish close enough to the boat that they lost interest. Water temp was 75 in 55′!

My son is here visiting from the Keys and mother nature offered up a perfect day to show off some of Homosassa’s famous grouper fishing. Kyle and I hit the water at 8:30 after saying hello to Salty Dawg we ran out 30 miles to 45 feet of water. On the way out we noticed the suspended layer of algae from 15 feet all the way out to where we started in 45 feet. We used the Minn Kota as an anchor and dropped cut bait on Carolina rigs and the grouper did not disappoint!

Seas were flat, wind was perfect, water temps. are on the rise, it was one nice day to chase the brown bombers. We had decided to go out and fish a wreck in 25 ft. but on the way we would hit some good structure spots . First stop Mrs. Ruff One hooks up, and after a few runs, gets off. Next I connect and of all things, the brand new circle hook breaks in half, fish gone! Finally Gail boats one and it’s 1/4 in. short! Oh well, we move on and head out to our final destination […]

Everyone thinks of sheepshead as convicts, because they steal a few shrimp, but I’ve come to the conclusion, shrimp theft is only a misdemeanor compared to the felonies the AJ’s have committed upon my tackle and wallet this year. And there was the plan for the day, take the family and the neighbors out to associate with both known criminals and hopefully invite a few over for dinnner […]